GEOLOGICAL AREAS OF CANADA. 109 



PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



This Province, as regards its more salient geological features, is 

 divisible into two broad regions, comprising: (1.) The Southern 

 Metam Orphic District, occupied essentially by crystalline and granitic 

 formations; and (2.) the Northern Carboniferous District, in which 

 a number of Palaeozoic, and for the greater part Carboniferous, areas, 

 are separated more or less by belts and mountain ranges of syenites 

 and other related crystalline rocks. 



(1.) The Southern Metamorphic District. — This forms a long but 

 comparatively narrow area, extending over the country along the 

 entire southern coast of Nova Scotia proper, from a point between 

 Yarmouth and Cape Sable, in the west, to Cape Canso and the south 

 shore of Chedabuctcf Bay, in the east. Gradually contracting in 

 width between these points, it includes small portions of Digby and 

 Annapolis Counties,^ the whole of Shelbourne, and large portions of 

 Yarmouth, Queen's, Lunenbiu-g, Halifax, Hants, and Guysboro'. Its 

 coast-line is deeply indented, and its interior, for the greater part, of 

 a wild and rocky character. As regards its geology, it is essentially 

 a metamorphic region, occupied by crystalline strata, with consider- 

 able areas of unstratified granitic rocks, the latter, apparently, of 

 Post-Silurian age. 



The crystalline strata appear to consist in part of Laurentian forma- 

 tions, and in part of altered higher beds, ranging into the Silurian 

 series. They are- composed mostly of gneiss, fine-grained in some 

 localities and porphyritic in others, with associated mica-slates and 

 quartzites, succeeded in many places by black or bluish-black argil- 

 lites with well-marked slaty cleavage. These strata, as a rule, occur 

 in highly-tilted or otherwise disturbed beds. Thin layerg,(or bedded 

 veins'?) of quartz, for the greater part auriferous, are present, more 

 especially, in the middle and upper portions of this metamoi-phic 

 series. The gold is mostly distributed through special zones or so- 

 called " streaks," or " pipes," in these quartz deposits, and it occurs 

 chiefly in the free state. In some places, however, it is also present • 

 in arsenical and common pyrites.* These quartz layers, as a rule, are 

 under a foot in width. They are very commonly situated on anti- 

 clinals, with high angle of dip ; and in many cases they are sharply 



* streaks or pipe-liands of this character are not uncommon in ordinary mineral veins. As 

 regards Western Canada, the writer has pointed out their occurrence in certain lead veins in 

 the township of Gal way, in Ontario. 



